Death in the Baltic: The World War II Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff

by Cathryn Prince

January 1945: the outcome of World War II has been determined. The Third Reich is in free fall as the Russians close in from the east. Berlin plans an eleventh-hour exodus for the German civilians trapped in the Red Army’s way. More than 10,000 women, children, sick, and elderly pack aboard the Wilhelm Gustloff, a former cruise ship. Soon after the ship leaves port, three Soviet torpedoes strike it, inflicting catastrophic damage and throwing passengers into the frozen waters of the Baltic. More than 9,400 perished in the night—six times the number lost on the Titanic. Yet as the Cold War started no one wanted to acknowledge the sinking. Drawing on interviews with survivors, as well as the letters and diaries of those who perished, award-wining author Cathryn Prince reconstructs this forgotten moment in history. She weaves these personal narratives into a broader story, finally giving this WWII tragedy its rightful remembrance.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, World War II, Germany, War, Maritime, European History

258 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Barry Hile · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have studied the available documentation about this tragic event for many years because my wife and 7 of her family members were on board when the Wilhelm Gustloff sank.

When I read this book I was shocked at the number of incorrect historical facts and downright silly errors. For example;

1. In the photo of Milda Benrich and baby Inga following page 112. the caption states,” Inga aged two remains the youngest known survivor of the Wilhelm Gustloff”.

The youngest known survivor was Egbert Wörner, born 29 January 1945 on the W.G. 24 hours before the "Wilhelm Gustloff"#sinking.

Also, it is well documented, and Prince also write about the last survivor picked up by VP-1703 at the bottom of page 159. Prince refers to an infant boy adopted by Petty Officer Fick and his wife, but she does not mention his age. In their books Schön# and Dobson# estimate Peter Fick (adopted name) to be one year old at the time.

2. On P.117, last paragraph, Prince refers to Friedrich Petersen as the ship’s military captain. He was the ship’s civilian captain.

3. On P.118 Prince states that the ship had 22 lifeboats . While this was the official compliment of lifeboats4 the ship left port with only 12 of the original boats. It is well documented the Harbormaster requisitioned 10 of the boats for other uses during the four years the Gustloff was docked for use as a training centre. The Gustloff was able to replace the missing boats with 18 small, heavily oared craft normally used by U-boat cadets for elementary sea training. These boats were lashed to the sundeck along with a number of naval life rafts

4. P. 119-120 Prince wrote that 13 members of the Danzig burgermeister’s (mayor’s) group, including the country’s Nazi Party leader, his wife, their 5 children, a maid and a parlor maid1took over the Adolph Hitler suite. Prince’s footnote reference was Hasting;‘s book , Armageddon, p328. In my copy of , Armageddon there is no mention of the above on page 328. However, on page 285 Hastings states that the officials and their family are from Gdynia, which is the Polish name for Gotenhafen, (not Danzig, which was later named Gdansk).
Also Prince refers to the country’s Nazi Party leader. This would be a Gauleiter. Hastings says it was the Gotenhafen Kreisleiter, the local Nazi Party leader for Gotenhafen.

Prussia had 2 Nazi Party leaders. Albert Forster was Gauleiter of Danzig-West Prussia and Erich Koch was Gauleiter for East Prussia. Neither were on the Gustloff. At war’s Forster surrendered to the British who handed him to communist Poland. He was condemned to death by the Polish court for crimes against humanity in 1948 and hanged on February 28, 1952 in Mokotów Prison in Warsaw. His wife, who had not heard from him since 1949, found out about his death in 1954. Koch was responsible for the evacuation of Germans from East Prussia. Prince talks about hia post war fate on Page 177.

The Kreisleiter for Gotenhafen was Arthur Diethelm. I could not find any information on him post the Gustloff sinking indicating he was the Nazi Party Leader on board the Gustloff.

5. On p.123 Prince states that Lt. Cdr. Zahn is 35 Years old. On p.125 she says he’s 33. His birth date is documented by Heinz Schön, the expert on the Gustloff sinking, as 29 Jul 10, making him 34 on January 30, 1945.

6. P.65, 56, 125 and 173 Prince continually refers to 63 year old Captain Petersen..
Petersen was captured by Allies early in the war. They released him on February 20, 1944 at age 66 on a promise not to sail a ship . He was 67 when he sailed on the Gustloff.

7. P. 125 Prince states that Petersen and Zahn settled on a zigzag pattern for the course to Kiel, It is well documented that for a number of reasons the zigzag pattern was not feasible. In fact on p.174 Prince quotes Admiral Englehardt as saying, “at least one has to ask why the ship’s leadership didn’t go high speed and zigzag”.

8. P. 130 Prince states that the crew divided up the hundreds of wounded on board and billeted them. There were only 162 wounded on board.

9. P. 134 Prince states, “Captain Wilhelm Petersen ordered sailors to secure the lifeboats…..”. Does she mean Captain Wilhelm Zahn or Captain Friedrich Petersen?

10. P. 142 The word cleaving should be clinging.

11. P.149 Prince says the S-13 lurked off the port side of the boat waiting to fire a 4th torpedo into the [Gustloff] or a rescue boat. On p. 131 she says the Russian sub fired all 4 torpedoes, but the one marked “For Stalin” jammed in the torpedo tube with its primer armed. [The Russians were busy trying to disarm it before it blew them up. This is well documented elsewhere.]

12. P. 149 Prince states that Horst Woit, 10 years old at the time, claims the Gustloff sunk at 10:30 PM, about 90 minutes after the 1st torpedo hit. I did not find this information in Woit’s account on the Gustloff Museum website. Prince did not footnote this statement. In Vollrath’s Sea Breeze’s account he states the Gustloff sank at 22:10, one hour after the 1st torpedo hit at 21.09 Max Hastings says it was 21:04 in his book, Armageddon , p 286, and Schön says in his book, Die Gustloff Katastrphe, p307 the 1st torpedo hit at 21:16 (he looked at the clock just before it hit) and the ship sank at 22:00. That’s only 44 minutes. Prince’s statement of Woit’s account says the Gustloff was afloat for more than half an hour longer than it was according to other testimony.

13. P.156 Prince states “Shortly after midnight, nearly two hours after the S-13 fired its first torpedo at the Gustloff, the Löwe moved along side Vollrath’s lifeboat.”

If the 1st torpedo hit the Gustloff at between 21:04 and 21:16 , then my math says “Shortly after midnight” is Three hours after the 1st torpedo hit, not two hours.

14. P.158 Prince says their were 69 people in Hoist’s life boat, and that some slipped into the water and drown; then on page 159 Prince says there were 70 people transferred from the lifeboat to the Löwe.

15. P.164 Prince says that most casualties of the army, Luftwaffe and other refugees were not identified. While the Wehrmacht, Kriegsmarine (KM) and Marinehelferin are well documented I have never seen a reference to the Luftwaffe being on board.
Normally military personnel moves would be documented and accounted for by their failure to report for duty after the sinking. Where did this info come from?

16. P 177 Prince says that [Erich] Koch escaped East Prussia in April 23, 1945, aboard an icebreaker from Pillau. His flight was interrupted when the British caught him on the island of Ruegen…….Koch stood trial in 1958 in Poland…..

According to Wikepedia who quote Ian Kershaw, The End: The Defiance and Destruction of Hitler's Germany, 1944-1945, p. 319 Koch was captured by British forces in Hamburg in May 1949.

17. P.174 Prince calls the Captain of the T-36, Admiral Robert Hering. His actual rank was Kapitänleutnant, which is equivalent to a U.S. Navy Lieutenant. A far cry from an admiral.

18. P. 179 Prince stated that the German leadership imposed a silence on the survivors for months and years following the sinking. The war was over by early May 1945. Why would post Nazi Germany’s leadership tell survivors to keep quiet about the sinking for years after. At the time my in-laws said that the sinking of the W.G. was kept quiet but they were never told by anyone not to speak about it. Besides this was a minor event compared to the death camps, the Nuremburg Trials and the cold war .

19. P.184 Prince says that the Tschinkurs received visas to immigrate to Regina, Ontario. Regina is a city in the province of Saskatchewan not in the province of Ontario. In Canada a province is analogous to a state in the U.S.A.

20. P. 188 Prince says that there were thousands of soldiers and sailors on board [the Gustloff], many of whom were destined to replenish German troops. The use of the word thousands of soldiers is an exaggeration in reference to the Gustloff sinking. There were 918 Kriegsmarine, 162 wounded, 373 women’s auxiliaries, about 1,500 military personnel if you count a few unnamed military staff supporting the wounded.

21. In Prince’s Appendix she lists Heinz Schön’s survivor tally by rescue boat incorrectly:
She lists Minensuchboot (minesweeper) M 387/TS II as Minensuchboot M375ITS 8 twice, although she got the number of survivors right, then she omits Minensuchboot M 341 and its 37 survivors. So her count was only 1,215 survivors rather than 1,252

I believe the first book about the Gustloff sinking was SOS Schicksale Deutscher Schiffe, Katastrophe bei Nacht (in German) by Otto Mielke Nov. 23 1953. Unfortunately the good English books on this event such as A.V. Sellwood‘s, The Damned Don’t Drown, 1973 and Dobson, Miller & Payne, The Cruellest Night, 1979, are out of print. If anyone wants to learn about the Gustloff sinking they should Google the Wilhelm Gustloff Museum and save their money on the purchase of Prince’s book. There are also documentaries on U Tube.
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[Mike Robbins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cathryn J. Prince’s Death in the Baltic is an account of the worst maritime disaster in history, the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff in January 1945. It contains some excellent research; the author has consulted a wide range of sources, some quite obscure. She has also interviewed survivors and obtained some outstanding eyewitness accounts – no mean feat given that Prince is writing nearly 70 years after the event. She also conveys a sense of who the victims really were, their diversity, and the shades of grey that surround the sinking. Yet there are signs of careless editing, and also an odd omission that gave me some reservations about the book.

The 25,000-ton liner Wilhelm Gustloff was launched in 1937 as a Strength through Joy ship, designed to take deserving Germans on cruises. It was noted for its modernity and luxury. However, it spent much of the war as a submarine depot ship, lying in Gotenhafen – previously, and now once again, the Polish port of Gdynia. This lay in what had been the Polish Corridor between the wars, and a substantial part of East Prussia lay to its east, including the ancient German city of Königsberg. In January 1945 Soviet forces had surrounded the latter and were pressing into eastern Germany from the east and the south. The Germans had embarked on a major sea evacuation, Operation Hannibal, that between January 23 and the end of the war would lift an astonishing 1.2 million-odd people out of the path of the Red Army, including about 900,000 civilians. The Gustloff was reactivated after her years in dock, and was one of the first really large ships to take part. At lunchtime on January 30 she left for Kiel. She was packed with German naval personnel, including over 300 female auxiliaries, and an unknown but very large number of civilian refugees.

Just after 9pm she was torpedoed by a Soviet submarine off the Pomeranian coast. She sank in less than an hour. The scene on board, by all accounts, made the Seventh Circle of Hell look benign. People fought each other, darkness and the ice on the decks to save themselves. Many were trapped below. At least a few seem to have committed suicide rather than enter the cold water; those who did jump mostly froze. No-one knows how many people died, because no-one is quite sure how many people were on board. However, postwar research by Heinz Schön, an 18-year-old assistant purser who survived the sinking, eventually concluded that there were 10,600 on board, of which he thought about 1,230 had survived. He eventually put the death toll at 9,343, most of which were civilian refugees, including a very large number of children. This toll dwarfed the Titanic, with about 1,500 dead (the Titanic was not even the worst British disaster). Yet the story of the Gustloff is far less well known. It is understandable that Prince, a researcher with several books to her credit, decided it would be a good subject. She is right.

Death in the Baltic’s main strength is the testimony of the survivors. Their accounts of the sinking itself are very alive, even after 70 years. Horst Woit, then 10 years old, today living in Canada, tells Prince how he and his mother had fled their home in Elbling, East Prussia, a few days earlier; on impulse, as they leave, the boy grabs his uncle’s eight-inch jackknife. Later, he and his mother will be among the few who get into a lifeboat, but the crew will be unable to sever the icy rope holding it to the ship; then he produces the knife. “The knife,” he tells Prince, “saved 70 lives.” Eva Dorn, later Eva Dorn Rothschild, is a naval auxiliary, and should have been billeted with the rest of them in the drained swimming-pool below decks, but takes one look at it and decides it’s an overcrowded death-trap. She goes up to help the doctors, who are delivering children and treating the wounded. When the torpedo strikes, a skeleton in a glass case falls over in front of her. She steps over it, and tells herself “You have stepped over death. Nothing will happen to you.” She has stepped over death; the second torpedo strikes the swimming-pool where she is supposed to be, and some 300 young women are blown to pieces.

Besides capturing testimony of the actual sinking, Prince has done very well to tell us who the civilians aboard actually were. Eva Dorn, the naval auxiliary, was not some stereotyped Nazi but the daughter of an improvident unemployed opera singer and a viola player. A rebellious young woman, she was delighted to be thrown out of the girls' equivalent of the Hitler Youth. Even more interesting are the Tschinkur family, who don’t seem really to have been German at all. They were from Riga, but when the Nazi-Soviet Pact was signed, the Baltic States (soon to be swallowed up by Stalin) were pressurized into repatriating anyone who was vaguely German; in fact their mother was Russian but their father had been German some generations back, so they were classified as Volkdeutsch and forcibly “repatriated” to the Reich. Resettled in Gotenhafen, one of the children is caned at school because, asked to recite a poem, she does so in Russian. It is a strength of Prince’s book that she helps us see the passengers on the Gustloff not as a bunch of Germans who had started a war and whose lives were forfeit, but as thousands of individuals, each with their own story, and mostly deserving of something better. She is also good on the postwar feelings of the survivors, who never felt able to discuss the wreck. Ellen Tschinkur, who emigrated to Canada, mentioned it tentatively years later to a Canadian workmate. “One of her colleagues interrupted her. ‘Oh the war. That was hard, we had to use margarine’,” she says. Tschinkur did not speak of it again. Instead, says Prince, some of the remaining survivors talk to each other each January 30; sharing, in Prince’s poignant phrase, their “lifeboat of shared memory.”

Two things do let this book down. One is a certain carelessness in the editing. Friedrich Petersen, the captain of the Gustloff, is 63 in both 1938 and 1945 (actually both wrong; he was 67 in 1945, and although he survived the sinking, he died a year or so later). The Polish name for the old German city of Thorn is Toruń, not Turin. There are a few other relatively minor things. All authors make mistakes, but Prince had a major publisher behind her and they should have picked these up.

A much more serious problem for me was the book’s claim to break new ground. On the jacket blurb (presumably written by the publisher, not Prince herself) we’re told that “both East and West kept this story hidden for 65 years.” No they didn’t. A veil was drawn over it in postwar Eastern Europe, it’s true; but West Germans knew of it. Moreover, in her introduction, Prince says that “few American historians have written about it. The most information I found consisted of footnotes in World War Two histories... I had no explanation for the lack of news articles... my reporter’s instincts kicked in, and I promptly began researching the Wilhelm Gustloff.”

This is strange. It may be that there is little American material, but there are two books in English, A.V. Sellwood’s The Damned Don’t Drown (1973) and The Cruellest Night, by Christopher Dobson, John Miller and Ronald Payne (1979). The former is reportage and has its flaws, but is very vivid; Sellwood is particularly good on the horrors of the actual sinking – better, in fact, than Prince, good though she is. The Cruellest Night (Cruelest in the US) is an excellent, well-researched, well-written and thorough account. Both books had American editions, and Prince must have known about them. As she doesn’t quote from or rely on them, she is not obliged to cite them; she has done nothing improper. But it is odd that she does not at least reference them as general sources. As Prince’s book is otherwise very well-referenced, it may be that her publisher discouraged her from mentioning them; if so, they did her a disservice.

Prince also does not discuss something germane to her last chapter – the debate that has gone on in Germany since the 1990s on the suppression of memory, sparked by the late W. G. Sebald’s essay On the Natural History of Destruction. The Gustloff has been dragged into this and has become a political football – to the extent that Nobel laureate Günter Grass based his last novel, Crabwalk, around the sinking, in an attempt to reclaim if from the far right. Again, it’s surprising that Prince doesn’t mention Grass’s book. But this is a less serious omission. It may be that she simply felt her book had to end somewhere, and perhaps she was right.

If I were to read just one book on the Wilhelm Gustloff, I’d go for The Cruellest Night, which is a more rounded account with more context, and is extremely well-researched. And for eyewitness accounts of the sinking itself, Sellwood’s The Damned Don’t Drown is more detailed and immediate. I would also have felt much happier about Death in the Baltic if it had acknowledged that it was not the first such work in English.

Nonetheless, for anyone seriously interested in the Gustloff, or in the last months of the war, Death in the Baltic is a compelling read. It is also especially good at humanizing the passengers and showing who they really were. Despite misgivings, I do recommend it.

This and other books about the disaster are reviewed on my blog at http://mikerobbinsnyc.blogspot.com/20...

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the little known story of the greatest maritime disaster of all time. As the Russian army closed in on the East Prussian coastline, the Wilhelm Gustloff seemed the only means of escape to the refugees who had flocked to the docks. It was January 1945 and, although there were severe reprisals for showing defeatism, the Germans knew they had lost the war. Despite exhortations to keep fighting until the end, many in the Eastern part of the country fled to the port of Gotenhafen, where Operation Hannibal was in place - a plan to evacuate refugees from the advancing Soviet army.

The author tells what happened when Friedrich Petersen, the captain of the Wilhelm Gustloff was ordered to sail to Kiel. His ship, which had started life as a passenger liner, become a hospital ship and then a U-boat training school, was one of thousands of ships intended to transport wounded soldiers and refugees. We are introduced to many of the passengers, some of whom survived and others who perished in the icy waters; as well as the Soviet submarine commander who was facing his own problems and who needed a 'significant kill' to save himself from possible relocation to a gulag.

It is clear that the ship was horribly overcrowded, with refugees suffering hunger, frostbite and exhaustion before even making it on board. Ice was thick on the deck and people slept wheverer they could. Like other maritime disasters, there was a lack of lifeboats and life preservers, making any chance of escape difficult. Even knowing that you are reading about a massive disaster, the story of what happened on that fateful night still has the capacity to shock. It is even more thought provoking when you realise how little was known about what happened, even at the time, and the author explains why that is. Overall, this is a fascinating account of a little known event, well written and told with great humanity.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the book but found the background history to be inaccurate. I have since read a review that enumerated the errors on a page by page basis. Some of these may be related to information available to the author. Others are just plain wrong statements.

As a human interest story telling the tales of several survivors, I think the book has merit. As a well-written history of the event rather than the people it is lacking and its research value is limited. Prince could have benefited from more careful editing.

[Tarissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

"World War II not only wiped away whole villages and populations. It also wiped away pieces of history." (Page 175, Death in the Baltic)

Cathryn Prince tells a harrowing story, one of a mass murdering. Many think of the Titanic as a tragic shipwreck; the Wilhelm Gustloff sunk with more than 4 times the passengers of the Titanic aboard.

I learned so much from this book; the information about this piece of hidden history is priceless. I learned of the tortures that the Germans had to face during WWII. Commonplace Germans were afraid of the Nazis too, not just the Jews and other persecuted races. German families became refugees of a war that their own country started, but they wished to take no part in it. These families just wanted to get away... and the Wilhelm Gustloff was their ticket out of the war zone.

Sadly, this ship, carrying so many to safety, was chosen as the object of a torpedo attack. This great and mighty hulk sunk to the bottom of the Baltic Sea, taking an almost uncountable amount of souls with it.

How is it that no one has really heard of this ship and its tragic end?
Because it happened during a deadly war. (The Germans controlled the news of the sinking, and actually, not many knew about it at the time the sinking took place in 1945. The few survivors were silent. The story didn't travel far.)

"Death in the Baltic" holds all the information you could ask for about the Wilhelm Gustloff. It contains volumes of information of the ship, her history, her demise, and the travelers aboard her decks.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you ask any given person what the worst maritime disaster was in history, (of those who could bring one to mind) you would probably hear about the Titanic, or even the Lusitania. However, I'd say it's a safe bet that the odds are astronomical that you'll find someone who knows about the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff.

In the last year of WWII, in a last minute attempt to evacuate one million military and two million refugees from East Prussia, the Nazis experienced their own version of Dunkirk. On the night of January 30, 1945 the Wilhelm Gustloff, a luxury cruise ship pressed into military service, departed Gotenhafen for Kiel. It was estimated, since no records survived if any were available, that the ship carried over 9,000 souls, when it was designed to carry only 2,000. The majority were civilian refugees, women and children, and a number of wounded military personnel. A short time later, the Wilhelm Gustloff was struck by three torpedoes fired by a Soviet submarine S-13. The ocean liner sunk within an hour. Since there were lifeboats for only a fraction of those on board, many drowned in the freezing Baltic. There were approximately 1200 survivors. Some estimate the death toll as high as 9,000. To put the tragedy in perspective, approximately 1200 lives were lost on the Lusitania, and just over 1500 on the Titanic.

The sinking was not deliberately kept secret over the years, but it wasn't exactly publicized either. In post WWII America, not many people cared about what had happened to our former enemies. The ensuing Cold War with the Soviets further obscured the tragedy in the world's collective memory. Author Cathryn Prince heard about it one day and was driven to find out more. She found a survivor who had since immigrated to Canada. Prince went there to interview him. That's all it took to compel Prince to find more survivors to interview, and finally tell their story.

Prince articulates an observation that Americans have a tendency to not acknowledge the suffering of the German people during the war, not wanting to view them as having the right to be "victims" of the Nazis like other nationalities in Europe (p. 181). But if we are able to put those prejudices aside, there is a lot to learn in the details of the closing days of WWII in the European Theater. Moreover, as a reader and writer of military history, I think it's a good thing that we periodically put strategy and tactics aside and examine the experiences of civilians during war.

The book is well written and reads at a good pace. There is no fluff, coming in at 236 pages including back matter, but it is a thorough history. The reader will learn about what happened on the Eastern Front in the closing days of WWII, and be caught up in several of the survivor stories. Photographs of the survivors as children help us see them as real people who went through extraordinary events. In the interest of full disclosure, Palgrave Macmillan provided a review copy of this book. I'm glad they did, as at first glance it was not a subject I would have chosen. However, I highly recommend Death in the Baltic. It is an interesting, well told story that brings a little known event from WWII to light.

[Doreen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent account of the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff, a German luxury lineliner, converted to carry soldiers, refugees, etc.

In 1945, as Germans were being relocated from the Baltic region which consisted of East Prussia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, the ship was commissioned to transport them, as the Soviet army advanced. The evacuation included Polish refugees, as well. Named Operation Hannibal, it was one of the largest evacuations by sea in history. More than 9,000 people lost their lives due to the initial submarine attack, in the stampedes that immediately followed it, through drowning, or by succumbing to the frigid temperatures of the Baltic.

The book explains how Operation Hannibal was conceived and carried out. There are firsthand accounts of the tragedy, which serves to put a personal spin on the story. More than 9,000 people perished; thousands more than on the Titanic, yet the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff is little-known. One reason for this is that the Germans gave strict orders immediately after the ship's sinking that the tragedy was not to be discussed. Since it was a German ship that had been sunk by the Soviets, the Nazi's were furious and humiliated. It was by threat of physical harm or death that the survivors were bullied into going about their lives as if the tragedy had never happened.

The book is packed with information about a wartime event that I had never even heard mentioned anywhere. At times, the book jumps around a bit, but this does not detract from the overall telling of the story. The author did a great job finding tidbits of information that help create a clear picture of that fateful day.

[Fritz Nordengren · Rating 5 out of 5]

In "Death in the Baltic", Cathryn Prince shares her ability to find and tell good stories. She's blended the facts and details with a collection of personal narratives from survivors of the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff to make a compelling read and offer a rich sense of life in the closing months of WWII Germany. While I was, like many people, totally unaware of this tragic disaster, I thought I had a sense of the end of the war. Prince's book shares a new understanding and does so with an objective -- but not dispassionate -- voice.

Her book blends solid, first rate reporting with interviews and snippets of letters from survivors to give a feeling for the experience. The collection of photos mid book are from an era when photos were rare, and the add to the sense of connection.

If you've even been on a cruise ship, you'll have a new appreciation for the mandatory lifeboat drill. The chilling retelling of the final moments aboard ship and then into the icy waters of the Baltic are astounding.

"Death in the Baltic" reads well, has natural pausing points and I think is an easy-to-follow book even for the non-history buff. For the scholar and historian, it is richly footnoted and has a solid bibliography. High school AP history teachers should add this to their reading lists; it puts a great spin on both WWII and how major events can remain hidden for nearly 70 years.

[Jean-Paul Adriaansen · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you think that the sinking of the Titanic was the worst maritime disaster ever, then you're wrong.
In the final months of WW II, in an attempt to flee from the Soviet Army, the Wilhelm Gustloff, packed with thousands of Germans (mostly civilians), takes off from a Polish harbor. A few hours later, hit by Russian torpedoes, the ship vanished in the freezing cold Baltic Sea; nearly all of the passengers died.
The war was still going on on German soil; the freed European countries were licking their wounds; the Allies didn't want to discredit the Soviets; the German leaders didn't want to discourage their people. For all those reasons the disaster didn't get any attention and was soon forgotten, except by the few survivors.
Amazing and harrowing story, well written and documented.

[Joanne, drinker of tea, reader of books, servant to cats · Rating 4 out of 5]

Note: Goodreads, we need a half star. This was better than 3 stars, but not quite 4 stars. So 3.5

How do you write a review about a tragedy? How do you measure with stars the story of the deaths of 9,000 people?

A German friend of mine has told me that there are some great German language books on the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff, but as I am mono-lingual, I have been looking at the few available English language books.

Although I was not a fan of the author's writing in the first half, (more on this later), what came through was an emotive telling of the evacuation of East Prussia (and other areas) towards the end of WWII, and the events of 30 January 1944, when the Wilhelm Gustloff was torpedoed by a Russian submarine.

Cathryn Prince describes very well an East Prussia where the people were facing the fall of the Reich and the oncoming Russian army, but were prevented from leaving as this demonstrated a lack of faith in the expected ultimate triumph of the Reich. Stopped to the point of civilians being shot in public when caught trying to leave.

When people are finally told they can leave, in early 1944 one of the largest military evacuations takes place. Operation Hannibal saw the evacuation over the course of 15 weeks, of around 1.2 to 1.3 million people, both civilians and wounded military. Most ships and boats made several trips to get people to safety. The Gustloff made just one.

Several survivors were interviewed by the author. Their stories of the events leading up to boarding the Gustloff, and the sinking, what happened after their rescue were interwoven to tell a truly ghastly picture.

Cathryn Price the articulates the fear and desperation of individuals, mothers, and families in making their way to Gotenhafen in the hopes they can get on a ship away from Prussia and the Russians.

A few hours after departing Gotenhafen, 3 torpedoes from a Russian submarine slammed into her port side; in the bow, amidships, and towards the stern.

The Gustloff was built to carry 2,000 passengers and crew and had lifeboats for 5,000. By the time she sailed on 30 January 1944 there was an estimated 10,000 people on board. Half the lifeboats could not be launched because of the almost immediate list to port. Of the remaining lifeboats, most could not be launched because the davits and other connecting mechanisms had frozen in the Baltic winter weather.

The way Cathryn Price retold the events from the survivors stories is heart breaking. The desperation, and the realisation that there is no possible way everyone will get off the sinking ship come through with chilling and gut wrenching humanity.

What makes the sinking of the Gustloff more tragic is how unknown it is. Most people could name the Titanic, many could mention the Lusitania, but few would recognise the name of the Gustloff.

Collectively, the Titanic and Lusitania lost less than 2,800 people (1,520 and 1,197). To put this in a more modern context, in the terrorist attacks on the US in September 2001, just under 3,000 people lost their lives.

Because the exact number of people on board is unknown, the number of victims is also unknown. But it is estimated that over 9,000 people died in the sinking of the Gustloff, and around half of those were children.

Now, for the writing. In the first half of the book, Cathryn Price was drawing together multiple story lines as well as some historical context, and this created a bit of a disjointed mess, with much repetition - such as the telling and telling and telling of almost identical impressions of Gotenhafen as each person arrived. There was some rapid flicking between people which was almost dizzying, and also a bit of flicking backward in time which was a bit disjointing. This is probably due to the many threads that needed to be pulled together in order to give as full a picture as possible.

But. The second half of the book was a vast improvement. Probably because all the threads were now gathered.

Would I recommend this book? Absolutely yes!! This is an event in history that should be more well known. My issues with the way the writing was approached aside, Cathryn Price has written a book that is well worth the read.

[Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

The tragedy of Wilhelm Gustloff's sinking has been captured and will forever be remembered thanks to the gifted work of Cathryn Prince. Her book, Death in the Baltic: The World War II Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff, is an example of what non-fiction writing should be. Both well written and researched, the book provides a dramatic account of one of the most horrific maritime disasters in history. It is believed over 9,000 perished in the cold Baltic waters with only 1,200 surviving. Thankfully, Prince was able to find survivors to document their first hand accounts of the Gustloff's sinking and preserve the history of the final days of World War II. I must admit, I have a fascination with both maritime and World War II history, and Death in the Baltic delivers a story worth telling and one I've never heard. It added to the understanding of the war. I highly recommend the book.

[Hummingbird630 · Rating 5 out of 5]

An important addition to the narrative of World War II…This tale of innocent lives lost or permanently imprinted with the ravages of war examines the sinking of this Nazi cruise liner filled with German refugees running from the Allied forces at the tail end of the war. Through in depth reporting and sensitive and personal interviews with survivors, Prince, a veteran historian and news writer, reveals how it happened. She takes us on a wild ride, from Hitler's filling of this ship with homeless Germans to the eager groping of an insecure Soviet sub commander for a big kill to glorify his name among his military peers, to the harrowing results of his choice and the decades-long battle the survivors have waged against their memories of this enormous and senseless loss of life, and the Allies’s cool disregard of it.

[Gigi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent true accounts of the worst maritime disaster. My father, who was a child in Germany during the war told me that his older step-brother was almost on the Wilhelm Gustloff. His step-brother was a soldier who played in the music band in the German Army and his team was supposed to get on the ship, but at the last minutes, they were stopped as the wanted more women and children to board.

This is a tragic event in humanity's history that went untold for too long. Each of the survivors should proudly tell others of their brave survival so that generations to come can learn from history.

Thanks to the author Cathryn Prince for her research and allowing us to learn of this tragic event in a dark time in our world's history.

May the lost souls rest in eternal peace.

[Dwight Zimmerman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an incredibly well-researched account of the greatest maritime disaster in modern history. I was impressed with her ability to pull together so many different elements and create a gripping story.

[Jpoz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Prince tells the tragic story of the Wilhelm Gustloff and its passengers in a concise, readable and vivid way. She did track down survivors and was able to coax painful memories out of them much to the benefit of the reader.
A well balanced account that reads like a novel.

[Carol Wagner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone thinks Titanic is the greatest maritime disaster. This book debunks that myth!! My family was directly impacted by WW II so this is a rather personal story. Well researched and easy to read even though it is non fiction.

[Nathan Albright · Rating 5 out of 5]

As someone who reads and writes at least my fair share of literature about naval disasters [1], this book was definitely something that I could understand the need for. Many people are under the illusion that the notable events of history are covered in more or less a fair fashion, but this particular incident demonstrates that the context of a situation determines a great deal if it receives attention. The sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff cost the lives of some 8,000 people, the worst naval disaster in history, and yet the story is an obscure one, far more obscure than the Titanic and the Lusitania disasters. Part of the reason is the context, in that the Wilhelm Gustloff was sunk by a submarine commander known for exaggerating his kills and was sunk in the latter days of World War II, and that the people who died were mostly terrified German civilians of East Prussia and other areas seeking to flee Russian rape and murder. Given the fact that few people at the time had a great deal of sympathy for the Germans, it would make sense that this disaster did not get a great deal of attention at the time.

The structure and contents of this book are worthy of interest, and the book is about two hundred pages long, a pretty standard length for books of this type and one that should present no great difficulties for those who appreciate the book's subject matter. After a short introduction in which the author ably defends the purpose of this book, the author moves on to the situation for Germans in East Prussia and the terror they felt at the approach of the Soviet army, along with the operation meant to evacuate as many civilians and soldiers as possible to avoid them being trapped by the rapid advance of the Red Army and the history of the sunken ship itself, the pride of the German cruise fleet. After this the author then turns to looking at the perspective of the submarine captain who sank the Wilhelm Gustloff and his colorful background and checkered reputation. The account of naval warfare in the Baltic Sea during World War II is then discussed, along with the circumstances of the sinking itself and the paucity of items that have been found from the ship's sinking, as well as the struggle of the survivors of the wreck to move on despite the horrors of PTSD that they faced as a result of their experiences.

The author does a fine job here of looking at the disaster from a wide variety of perspectives. It is hard for me to be particularly sympathetic to the situation of Germany at the end of World War II given the fact that the war was the fault of the Germans themselves for their aggression against neighbors. Even so, the Germans of the Baltic region were not the Germans responsible for German aggression, and were, as the author explains, Hitler's hostages in dangerous terrain. The Russians were not prone to publicize how they used rape and massacres to terrorize the local German population of the Baltic region, and the Western Allies did not think it worthwhile to antagonize a wartime ally by mentioning it. Thankfully, the author and some of the survivors of the disaster have been able to overcome the conspiracy of silence about this disaster and give it its proper place in history in the dark days towards the close of World War II, when efforts to evacuate Germans from East Prussia led to the worst maritime disaster in history, a reminder of the bad blood that still exists in the region over various historical evils.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2015...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2015...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2012...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2012...

[Reet Champion · Rating 4 out of 5]

The tragedy of the Wilhelm Gustloff is a little heard of disaster that claimed the lives of as many as 9,000 souls. Towards the end of World War II refugees were fleeing the oncoming Soviet Army, and with good reason. Atrocities were being dealt toward civillians part of the German Reich. On the M/V Wilhelm Gustloff's last voyage thousands of people were seeking passage on ships that would take them out of Poland. The Wilhelm Gustloff was one of them. When she steamed away from a Polish port and into the Baltic Sea she was heavily loaded with German military personnel, refugees and sailors. Then disaster struck. A Soviet submarine spotted the Gustloff and torpedoed her, leaving a struggling humanity to battle the harsh Baltic elements as the Gustloff slipped beneath the waves.

This was a great read of a terrible event. This nicely written page turner has brought the story to the attention of a modern audience. Cathryn J. Prince sets the stage of the evacuation of refugees, provides back stories of those who found a spot of the Gustloff and then follows them through the sinking. By putting a face/personality to those who experienced the sinking the disaster becomes more personalized and not just a statistic.

[Jill D. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Horst grabbed his Uncle's pocketknife and slipped it in his pants as his mother escorted him away from the life he'd always known and to the waiting cruise liner in Gotenhafen. Escaping Hitler's Nazi Germany and fleeing from Stalin's advances on the Eastern Front, Horst Woit and his mother boarded the Wilhelm Gustloff. That stolen jack-knife cut loose the lifeboat that saved his and others' lives when the Gustloff began to sink after a soviet submarine torpedoed it in the freezing waters of the Baltic in January 1943.

The gripping eyewitness accounts of survivors from the greatest maritime disaster in history bring this forgotten episode in WWII back from the bottom of the Baltic. Cathryn Prince writes this untold history, based on extensive archival research and first-hand interviews, with a "you are there" reportorial style. Most Americans know nothing about the sinking of Wilhelm Gustloff as the Nazi regime did not want news of any defeat and the Soviets did not authorize the rogue Marinesko to fire the torpedoes. Prince rectifies the record with this compelling factual account that provides a historical account of war on the scale of human lives.

[Norma B. · Rating 5 out of 5]

DEATH IN THE BALTIC by Cathryn J. Prince is a meticulously researched novel describing the worst maritime

disaster that has ever occured---the Sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff on January 30, 1945.

Prince details the historical events leading up to the heinous Russian act of torpedoing this vessel and its

9 thousand four hundred passengers. This powerful novel is masterfully crafted through Prince's brilliant

portrayal of the time of the Third Reich. The author personally interviewed survivors and has given life

to the untold stories of this unparalleled tragedy.

DEATH IN THE BALTIC is noteworthy as a serious read not only for historians but is a necessary read for us all.

It serves to awaken the reader to the real horrors experienced by the civilian populations of all nations during

war and its aftermath.

[Jack London · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gold medal winner of the Military Writers Society Non-Fiction award for 2013, this fine little book details the worst naval disaster in history, the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff in the Baltic in 1945 with the loss of over nine thousand lives, a catastrophe six time more deadly than the Titanic. Prince writes a very fine history for 180 pages, then makes the unfortunate decision to circle like a wolf pack to be sure the reader knows how bad it is and repeats herself a few times more than is needed. But, when we think how bad we had it in WWII, this reminds us that even Germans had it bad as well. It is a very well researched and written account of a little-known tragedy. - See more at:
http://jwlbooks.com/jack-london-revie...

[Mel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Considering that the Nazis suppressed information about the sinking of the Gustloff, the Russians destroyed most of the records, and the Allies really didn't care, Prince has done a great job bringing this story to light. She obviously spent a good deal of time locating and interviewing the victims of this event. Everyone has heard about the Titantic and the Lusitania, but the loss of life on the little known Gustloff far exceeded both combined.

[Dachokie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Story That Sunk With the Ship …

I discovered the fate of the “Wilhelm Gustloff” as a child while skimming through my 1975 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records. The ship’s sinking was simply noted as history’s “worst maritime disaster” on a list of several other catastrophic events causing significant loss of life. While the sinking of the “Lusitania” and the “Titanic” are deemed historical events, the combined number of deaths associated with those ships is roughly 3x less than the number of deaths from the “Gustloff”. Astonishingly, most people have never heard of the “Wilhelm Gustloff”. With DEATH IN THE BALTIC, Cathryn Prince shines a much-needed light on the ship, its demise and the reasons why such a catastrophe is still nothing more than a historical footnote some 70 years later.

In many ways, DEATH IN THE BALTIC underscores the huge difference between the Western Allies’ war against Germany and the one the Soviet Union fought. The war in Western Europe sought to liberate while the focus in Eastern Europe was annihilation. Had it been sunk in the Atlantic by a British or American submarine, the name “Wilhelm Gustloff” and its nearly 10,000 victims likely would have been a must discussed history topic. But, with such an incident occurring on the Eastern Front, its death toll is rather insignificant … just another atrocity in a conflict defined by more deadly atrocities.

Cathryn Prince provides a nice, well-rounded perspective for readers by providing ample background prior to the ship’s demise. The first several chapters of the book are designed to provide us with a better understanding of how the overall scenario developed over time. She starts by detailing the precarious situation that East Prussians found themselves facing in early 1945 … an isolated part of Germany sandwiched between occupied Poland and the unstoppable, revenge-fueled Red Army rapidly approaching from the East. The situation demanded a solution to save some 2 million German lives by sea-born evacuation (Operation Hannibal). Similar to the British/French evacuation at Dunkirk in 1940, a variety of suitable vessels were needed, including the luxury liner “Wilhelm Gustloff”. Prince provides several first-hand accounts to accentuate the experience faced by East Prussians essentially cutoff from the German homeland. The accounts include those of young children whose lives were both enjoyable and “normal” when the war was far from their doorsteps. We are also informed of the dangerous situation in the Baltic Sea, where the escape vessels are forced to contend with mines (some 60,000) and a re-invigorated Soviet Navy, including a submarine commander needing a heroic deed to save his career from insubordination. By including all these angles, Prince sets the table for the night of January 30, 1945.

Although we essentially know what happens shortly after the “Gustloff” sets off into frigid abyss that January in 1945, the book does a good job maintaining suspense as we are given an idea as to what it was like on board the overcrowded vessel, with civilians and soldiers alike feeling they’d escaped certain death or captivity by leaving East Prussia. When the S-13 fires 3 torpedoes into the “Gustloff”, chaos and survival are evident, but there is also an element of order. When the torpedoes strike, the story gets a little confusing as each survivor’s account is told after another (giving the impression of multiple attacks), but these accounts eventually “even out”. While the ship sinks in relatively short order, the ordeal of those in the water is dramatic and miserable (think of the movie “Titanic” x 10). Life and death decisions on the surviving, yet overcrowded life boats in the icy Baltic make it difficult to believe there were almost 1,000 survivors, including children. The accounts of surviving in the water are some of the more dramatic moments in the book.

I found one off the book’s most interesting attributes to be the aftermath of the ship’s sinking; how survivors and the sub-commander fared and how history views the incident. For the most part, everything was forgotten … survivors wanted to avoid the shame of Germany’s Nazi past and the Soviet Union did not want to draw attention to the sinking of a civilian ship (which was carrying military passengers as well). The S-13 actually sank another vessel shortly after the “Gustloff”, making the sub responsible for another 3-4,000 deaths. The details of S-13’s commander (A. Marinesko), his wartime service and life, is an interesting story by itself. Mysteriously, modern-day explorations of the “Gustloff’s” wreckage have oddly found “no trace of human existence”, indicating the Soviet Union was involved in “cleaning up” the wreckage (possibly in search of valuable military or historical cargo). Essentially, the sinking of the “Wilhelm Gustloff” and the lack of information following its demise (from survivors and German/Soviet records) shroud this story in mystery. While the book sufficiently encapsulates events, we are still left with the feeling that there are questions that can’t or won’t be answered.

I found DEATH IN THE BALTIC to be both informative and interesting to read. It is astounding that the sinking of the “Titanic” garners so much attention, yet the fate of the “Gustloff” is relatively unknown. This book provides an excellent overview of the before-during-after aspects of a significant tragedy that is still quite mysterious.

[Elizabeth Rynecki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cathryn J. Prince is a passionate storyteller with a knack for bringing history to life. In Death in the Baltic she develops a sad historical footnote– the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff, a ship full of German refugees at the end of the Second World War�� into a harrowing tale. She weaves together the personal and intimate stories of German refugees on the run in January 1945, as they try to escape the advancing Russian army. Her narrative intertwines the details of the lives of those on board with the larger narrative tragedy as the ship goes under. This personalizes and calls attention to what has been a largely forgotten maritime disaster that entailed a loss of life six times as great as suffered in the sinking of the Titanic. Prince’s retelling is important because it focuses attention on those who perished and the lonely voices of survivors that have largely been overlooked in the shadow of the Second World War, and by so doing it makes clear the tragedy and suffering visited on all sides of that terrible conflict.

I should note that while I have never met Cathryn in person, she is someone I have come to know, like, and admire through social media.

[Dianne McMahan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not to be Mentioned
This was a good book about the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff in the final days of WWII.
This ship carried thousands of German refugees and service men and women.
A Soviet submarine skipper determined to get his just reward by destroying an enemy ship,torpedoed the unescorted ship and sunk it causing the deaths of thousands of human beings.
It surpassed the death total of the Titanic and was ,so far the deadliest loss of lives,ever reported.
The survivors were threatened with punishment or even death if they ever talked about what happened on the sea that day.
They kept it to themselves and only talked in their homes to others who were there for over 40 yrs.

The editor of this book (Kathryn Prince) has done an excellent job of tracking down remaining survivors and interviewing them for this book.
I have read several books that touched on or mentioned this wreck,but this book gives many details, that I had not read about before.
Very interesting book,would recommend😊

[Jack London · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gold medal winner of the Military Writers Society Non-Fiction award for 2013, this fine little book details the worst naval disaster in history, the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff in the Baltic in 1945 with the loss of over nine thousand lives, a catastrophe six time more deadly than the Titanic. Prince writes a very fine history for 180 pages, then makes the unfortunate decision to circle like a wolf pack to be sure the reader knows how bad it is and repeats herself a few times more than is needed. But, when we think how bad we had it in WWII, this reminds us that even Germans had it bad as well. It is a very well researched and written account of a little-known tragedy. - See more at: http://jwlbooks.com/jack-london-revie...

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

A credible and complete history of the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff. Based on much research, along with interviews (decades later) of some of the survivors.

The whole Baltic area became a ruthless war zone largely from the nonaggression pact signed by stalin and hitler. Both of those animals probably knew in advance that the treaty was nothing more than a way to build a salable excuse on why they should battle each other over the territory, inflicting brutal treatment on anyone in their way.

The tragedy of the Wilhelm Gustloff is that about 9,000 people died, and most of them were only guilty of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Few of them had anything to do with the war, its causes, or its atrocities.

[Debra Dahlgren Rowand · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this in conjunction with Ruta Sepetys' SALT TO THE SEA. She cited this as one of her resources and I decided to dig in. I'm still fascinated and appalled over the sinking of the Willem Gustloff and am glad to learn about an event that until recently had been covered up. Reading accounts from the few survivors was another interesting, yet haunting part of the book. Even the account from the professional scuba diver who visited the Baltic Sea wreck made this non-fiction read compelling. Who knows how many other WWII events are not as well known, but I for one am glad to have read this account.

[Holly Ristau · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading "Salt to the sea", a fictional account of this event, I decided to read up on the actual sinking of the Wilhelmina Gustloff. These books make me wish our politicians and warmongers in the US would realize the legacy of war. Too many good people have died.

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great story, badly written